London bombings accelerate EU-wide anti-terrorism laws

EU justice and interior ministers have vowed to reach a swift agreement on the main points of a plan for storing details on all phone, fax and email communications as part of their response to last Thursday’s (7 July) bomb attacks in London.

At an emergency meeting yesterday (13 July), the ministers agreed to accelerate work on implementing the plan of action on terrorism drawn up after last year’s train bombings in Madrid.

The London atrocities have given new impetus to proposals on obliging telecommunications firms to retain data, possibly for a period of up to three years. After the identification of London’s suicide bombers earlier this week, British investigators will be examining phone and email records as they try to trace who might have co-ordinated their deadly work.

The UK has long been arguing the merits of common data retention rules. Along with France, Ireland and Sweden, it backed a previous proposal to introduce data retention. But that attempt to initiate legislation in the Council of Ministers was ruled illegal by lawyers advising both the European Commission and Council. The legal advice is that the measure should be introduced as an internal market measure for the telecoms market, which would have to be initiated by the Commission.

The Commission plans to put forward its proposal on the matter only in September. UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he hoped for an agreement by October.

The earlier proposal from the Council met stiff criticism from telecoms firms, fearing the cost, police organisations, which warned it would be unwieldy, and civil libertarians, who regarded it as too intrusive.

José Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, said he wanted to bring forward suggestions that were proportionate to the risk of terrorism and based on solid legal grounds. “It is obvious that data retention is a crucial instrument in the fight against terrorism,” he said. “It is also obvious that it raises privacy concerns and that it would have costs for industry.”

But Peter Hustinx, the European data protection supervisor, this week cast doubt on the effectiveness of a far-reaching data retention scheme. The likelihood of such a scheme preventing the London attacks, he added, was “slim”.

Ministers also resolved to:

Agree on a European evidence warrant – allowing a judicial authority in one EU state to order that individuals or materials be handed over from another;

approve new rules aimed at depriving terrorists of finances, including giving greater powers to law enforcement agencies to freeze assets of suspects; and,

introduce a European programme on protecting ‘critical infrastructure’, like road and rail networks, by the end of this year.

Clarke rejected a claim by his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that some of the team which carried out the London attacks had been arrested last year. According to Clarke, the claim had “no foundation”.

France yesterday reimposed border controls with its EU neighbours in response to the threat of attacks after the London bombings. Sarkozy also suggested that mosques should be placed under surveillance to detect Islamic extremists.

While Clarke said that measures are being considered in the UK directed at certain preachers, he added that it was important to work in tandem with “the legitimate mainstream Muslim community” as part of a strategy to prevent young Muslims turning to violence.